


the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space

by silent_h



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV Second Person, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, all that fun stuff :), no capitalisation we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23420278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silent_h/pseuds/silent_h
Summary: prison is lonely, and the doctor is lonelier.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 90





	the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space

**Author's Note:**

> set immediately post s12 so like. yknow. spoilers.
> 
> title from byron's the darkness, because. you know

you’re alone. you try everything you can think of to escape but your pockets are empty and there are no seams on any of the walls and you can't hack the teleport that brought you (and will soon bring bland food and stale tasting water every couple of days) into the cell. you’re tired and you’re scared and you’re in pain and you’re so, so lonely (lonelier than you’d thought, lonelier than you’d ever known) and, for the first time in a very long time, there is nowhere to run. 

it’s like a black hole collapsing, the way you crumple into yourself. 

you spend two days pressed so closely into the floor that it starts to feel like you’re built into the structure. when you finally remove your hands from where they’ve been clutching claw-like at your ears, your fingernails are covered in blood.

(is there anyone even watching you? you have no cutlery or plates and only an immovable waste disposal attached to one wall, but you’re clever and you’re resourceful and you’re good at ignoring pain and you could— you know you could— you almost want to—)

(no matter how you act, the two of you could never ever remove the other from the universe, but he isn’t here and you’re so tired and—)

( _timeless_ , you remember. the one thing that it turns out that you can never ever do)

and then you explode.

you scream until your voice runs hoarse, and then you keep screaming, but silently. the lack of noise feels suffocating against your skin, and you slam your hand into the closest wall instead in a dull and frantic pattern.

you do it until it starts to cramp, and then you keep doing it.

(you almost stop, almost ashamed. you imagine your fam seeing you now, like a child having a tantrum, and then you— then you remember that you—)

when your hands are bloody and raw, you switch to kicking the wall instead.

when you reawaken, you don't know how much time’s passed, and you don’t remember falling asleep.

(useless excuse for a time lord

but then you aren't, are you?)

there’s a pile of uneaten food around the teleport, and your injuries haven’t been seen to (good, good, it burned again because of you why should you remain unscathed why do you always remain—). nothing’s been changed or moved or removed. total solitary confinement. automated, most likely.

after days and days of screaming and sobbing and kicking and punching the walls you know that they're soundproof, so you try something else: you reach out mentally. 

and it's hard because you're not the best psychic and your mind is still raw and reeling from the master and the matrix (no don’t think about that, _don’t_ ) but you keep trying and trying until finally you start to sense the other inhabitants.

the guards are grey hulking fortified blocks of psychic energy and you avoid delving too hard into them, terrified that they'll notice and make your cell psychic proof. they're almost comforting in their routine though as they pass the cells like clockwork.

there are some cells that are blank spots, clearly housing prisoners that are from highly psychic species (and you never thought you'd be so happy for the way time lords kept their biology secret from other races except except except no don't think about that just don't). you try, but it’s like throwing your mind at a brick wall; you bounce back again and again and again. it’s eerie in a way the empty cells aren’t, like running your tongue over a gap where a tooth should be.

there are prisoners who are so dissimilar to you that you can't parse their minds at all, who shine brightly and inherently against your senses. they hurt to look at, so _alien_ that you don't have words for how the sensation makes you feel. you still try, because you should, shouldn’t you? you're an explorer, aren’t you? an adventurer? but the strangeness of them against your skin makes you shiver in disgust, and then shiver again in self disgust.

and then there are the ones you can hear.

most of them are ones you try to avoid (at the beginning, at least. before the second year passes and you’re still so starved for interaction) because they are proud of their crimes. they replay their actions on loop and they relish in the pain they caused. assassinations and murders and political coups; echoing throughout their mental space as though they mean anything, those tiny little crimes (when you finally force yourself not to flinch away from their thoughts, you realise that most of them were manipulated or used. not that they know. weapons, the lot of you, and nobody ever quite realises who has their hand on the trigger).

there are ones you avoid for other reasons (it takes you three years to cave) because they have been here for so long that their minds have deteriorated to the point that all you can pick up from them are very intense but very fragmented thoughts and emotions. used-to-bes and never-weres; you laugh and laugh and laugh and it is your laughter that ripples back to you.

and then finally there are the ones you speak to straight away. ones who committed their crimes because they had no other choice, or ones who have truly repented and regretted what they did, or ones who only did minor things but ended up in here anyway by association or by taking the fall for their group. almost innocents, and what does it mean that that’s enough for you now?

not all of them can talk back, and not all of them want to talk back (who taught you about consent? were you ever taught about it? have you ever experienced it?) but they still all respond in some way. they've all been there for different periods of time but you're the newest of them all by at least a decade. they tease you about that, as if you’re a child (were you ever—).

only one of them has even heard of time lords before, and they refuse to speak to you again, mind clamping shut with fear.

it takes you a month before you manage to find a gap wide enough to whisper through that you’re not a time lord, not really. it’s not the first time you’ve ever said it, but it’s the first time that you’ve known that it’s true.

you’re thrown out again, anyway.

(thrown out for something you can’t control, something that you can’t even _claim_ , and the worst thing is, you can’t blame them)

your favourite is a man a few floors above yours. not quite human, but close enough that you can overlook the differences. he’s funnier than he has any right to be, and kinder too. his mind instinctively curls around yours, and it’s almost like going home.

he's been here since he was eighteen, and he's one hundred and ten when you first speak to him. and he was framed.

 _i'll get you out,_ you promise, ten years in, _i'll take you to see the stars,_ and he laughs and laughs because his species' average lifespan is one hundred and fifty years and you both know that nobody's ever escaped from here.

so you try something else. you show him places you’ve been, places you want to go, places you _will_ go. you show him your fam and your friends and, on dark lonely days when the food is staler than usual and your thoughts echo so loudly around your room that they leave gouges in your skin, you show him your enemies.

your companion, if only in your mind. he’s nestled so deeply in your subconscious that you can almost picture him, and you still don’t know what he looks like.

his own memories are too old and his physic abilities are too weak for him to show you things in return, but his emotions are still so strong that you can almost hear what he’s thinking about when he’s feeling them. he has family out there, back on his far away home planet. he was still basically a child when he left, but he had one of his own, and he hopes that he might have grandchildren now too. he has friends whose faces he’s long forgotten, and homes that he’ll always remember. he is so young, and your hearts burn at the life he’s burned away trapped in here.

you don’t know if you’ll survive this (if there’s anything left of _you_ to survive this) but you will not let this life of confinement continue to eat away at his life until he dies, miserable and trapped and punished for something he never did. you will not let this boy turned man remain separated from the stars.

and then one day there is a Noise; an explosion that makes your cell shake and your ears ring, and you look up to see jack harkness and the master uneasily standing together as they peer into your cell.

 _miss us?_ jack says, but no, no, too loud, too harsh, the words trickle into your ears like treacle and you— 

and then— 

and then there are— 

and there are _hands_ on you— 

and there is another person’s _skin_ against yours— 

you—

you are— 

_calmcalmcalmsoothingsafesafe_ you shudder as your mind comes into contact with another proper telepath for the first time in years(? decades? centuries? how long have you—) and you look up to see the master and his face is— you don’t know. you don’t remember.

 _you’re safe you’re safe i won’tcan’t hurt you,_ he says, he thinks, as jack messes with his wrist (his vortex manipulator, cheap and nasty, you know this you _know_ this but it feels like someone else’s words your whole life is someone else’s words and isn’t that just—).

 _no_ , and you don’t realise you’ve said it until they both turn to look at you, eyes wide. _no_ , hissed through your teeth like an animal, and they are so close that it barely hurts to show them the prisoners that you’ve spoken to, and the promise that you made. _we can’t leave him behind._

 _i promised_ , you think, mind curling around your one friend in this place, _i told you i would_.

 _doctor_ , jack says, slowly, as the master begins to break out in brokenly hysterical laughter, _there_ are _no other prisoners._ _you're the only one here_.

**Author's Note:**

> edit: forgot to add this but!! some Lore bc i think too hard into my fics dsajlsad:
> 
> the ones she can't talk to bc they're too unknown are the memories of another universe; the ones who don't regret stuff is the part of her who is glad that the master destroyed gallifrey; the ones who have been there for so long that they've deteriorated is what she's scared to become; the judoon are the memories of brendan and the stuff they did serving gallifrey; the ones who do regret is her thinking about her fam and the ppl she's lost; the old man is how she feels now: trapped and blamed for actions she didn't do


End file.
